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Parshat Devarim
2003
On Leaving Joy
"When the month of Av enters we diminish [with] [our] joy." Mishnah Ta'anit 4:6
"Just as when Av enters we diminish our joy, so, too, when the month of Adar enters, we increase with [our] joy." (Babylonian Talmud, Ta'anit 29a)
Your Mishnah and Talmud Navigator
1. Why do both joy and sadness require an introductory period of joy or sadness?
2. What does this say about the nature of anticipation?
A Word
Jewish holidays always engage in a reliving of Jewish events. If we are to be truly reenacting our great and tragic historical moments, this requires preparation. The rituals of mourning: abstaining from wine and meat and parties during the first nine days of Av help groom our souls to feel the visceral loss of a Temple we never knew as we focus on the bitterness of exile. Similarly, the joy of Purim requires preparation as well; it is the joy of the season that makes us feel lucky, just as the three weeks before Tisha B'Av is seen as an unlucky and therefore unhappy period.
In some schools of Hasidic thought where true sadness was considered sinful they picked up on a grammatical anomaly in the Hebrew which literally translated means "When Av enters we diminish with joy."
They understood it to mean that since it is natural to feel sad as we relive these sad anniversaries, the way to diminish the pain of exile and destruction is "with joy." The natural response to calamity is to not lose our perspective on joy.
Prepared by Rabbi Avi Weinstein, director, Joseph Meyerhoff Center for Jewish Learning.
Learn More
Additional commentaries and text studies on Parshat Devarim at MyJewishLearning.com.
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